September 2, 2011—Two men have been arrested in connection with online attacks by hacking gangs Anonymous and LulzSec, Scotland Yard said. The men, aged 24 and 20, were arrested on Thursday in Mexborough, near Doncaster, South Yorkshire, and Warminster, Wiltshire, for conspiring to commit offences under the Computer Misuse Act 1990. Scotland Yard said the arrests were part of a continuing investigation in collaboration with the FBI, South Yorkshire Police and other law enforcement bodies, into activities of Anonymous and LulzSec, especially in connection with suspected offences under the cover of online identity “Kayla.”

September 1, 2011—A U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service official says a bald eagle that was partially covered in oil from an Exxon Mobil pipeline break into the Yellowstone River is no longer considered in danger. Agency spokesman Leith Edgar says the adult eagle molted, or dropped, some of its oil-covered feathers in recent weeks. The male eagle is part of a pair nesting along a stretch of the Yellowstone that was fouled by an estimated 1,000 barrels of crude oil after the 12-inch pipeline broke July 1 at a river crossing near Laurel.

September 1, 2011—For more than two centuries, it stood as a silent witness to history—the “Arlington Oak,” a tree that sprouted on land once owned by Robert E. Lee, and later consecrated as part of Arlington National Cemetery. Last weekend, it fell—one more casualty of the winds and heavy rains from Hurricane Irene. The Arlington Oak, estimated to be 220 years old, stood by in stoic silence as a nation’s history spread out nearby, as the acres filled with the graves of veterans, dignitaries, presidents and the fallen from war after war.

September 2, 2011—The federal agency that oversees the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is set to file suits against more than a dozen big banks, accusing them of misrepresenting the quality of mortgage securities they assembled and sold at the height of the housing bubble, and seeking billions of dollars in compensation. The Federal Housing Finance Agency suits, which are expected to be filed in the coming days in federal court, are aimed at Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank, among others, according to three individuals briefed on the matter.

September 1, 2011—A low-pressure system in the Gulf of Mexico that will probably strengthen into a storm within two days is shutting down some oil and gas output, while in the Atlantic Katia is forecast to grow into a major hurricane. The Gulf system has an 80 percent chance of becoming a tropical depression or storm in the next 48 hours as it moves northwestward, the National Hurricane Center said in an advisory at 2 p.m. Eastern time.

—Astonished scientist says he was “completely unprepared for the gob-smacking scale of the breakup, which rendered me speechless”—Glaciers shrinking at “alarming” rate

September 1, 2011—New photographs taken of a vast glacier in northern Greenland have revealed the astonishing rate of its breakup, with one scientist saying he was rendered “speechless.” In August 2010, part of the Petermann Glacier about four times the size of Manhattan island broke off, prompting a hearing in Congress. Researcher Alun Hubbard, of the Centre for Glaciology at Aberystwyth University, U.K., told msnbc.com by phone that another section, about twice the size of Manhattan, appeared close to breaking off.

August 31, 2011—When it comes to syncing calendars, President Barack Obama and Speaker John Boehner have had a scheduling problem long before Wednesday’s fight over the timing of the president’s upcoming jobs speech. The latest dispute was resolved by Wednesday evening, with the president conceding to the Ohio Republican’s recommendation that he speak before a joint session of Congress on Sept. 8, a day later than Obama had requested. Within weeks of taking control of the gavel, Speaker Boehner earned a reputation for declining invitations from Obama, including a state dinner for Chinese President Hu Jintao and a flight on Air Force One to attend a memorial ceremony for Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson, Ariz.

August 31, 2011—Aug 2011 More than a quarter of a million unredacted copies of secret U.S. diplomatic cables have shown up on the Internet after a security breach at WikiLeaks. The anti-secrecy organization today accused a reporter for the U.K.’s Guardian newspaper of disclosing the password that allowed access to the 251,000 State Department cables. The password was allegedly included in “WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange’s War on Secrecy,” which the Guardian published in February. “A Guardian journalist has negligently disclosed top secret WikiLeaks’ decryption passwords to hundreds of thousands of unredacted unpublished US diplomatic cables,” the organization said in a 1,600-word blog post.

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